Past, Present and Future
by FireCracker2000
Summary: Abandoned, unfortunately, as it was just too ambitious. But worth reading what there is as just a little snippet of the marauders beginnings :-
1. Chapter One

Past, Present and Future Chapter One 11th December 1958  
Mary awoke suddenly in a bed that wasn't hers. She sat up with a jolt, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and reached out with her left hand to the crib beside her. Slowly, she released the breath she had been unconsciously holding and pulled gently at the pastel blue blanket covering her son.  
The lights in the hospital were dimmed for the night, but Mary could see her son's face quite clearly. She stroked his wisp of hair softly, causing him to stir slightly, but he didn't cry. Feeling a little overwhelmed, she rubbed her damp eyes tiredly making her face wet. She was looking at a miracle.  
Gently, she lifted him out of his cot and cradled him in her arms. He wasn't supposed to be there. For so many years she had waited for his arrival, but to no avail. Over the years, he had been born in spring, autumn, winter, summer. He'd had blond hair, brown hair, freckles, blue eyes or green, a button nose. But always, always, he had tiny hands. And now he clasped his hand, with all its tiny fingers, around the wedding band on her own index finger, and sighed.  
Mary felt more secure now he was in her arms. She shifted herself back into her pillows and closed her eyes. She thought of their first Christmas together in only a few weeks. And then in a few months, in the summertime she would take him to feed the ducks in the park, just like she had done as a girl. She thought of all the clothes she had bought, blue and yellow and purple and green. He had his own room, with teddy bears and a mobile of stars.  
Gradually she drifted into an easy sleep. It wasn't long before the sun began to creep through the window, edging up her face making it glow. She surfaced naturally with the bustling of the nurses. Other mothers, some only half her age it seemed, were waking up also, fussing with cribs, feeding their babies.  
Prompted by the surrounding noise, the little boy in Mary's arms began to fret, pawing at her before opening his eyes and starting to cry. He was so helpless, she realised, totally dependent on her. Although the thought was somewhat frightening, it was also warm and all consuming, and Mary felt contentment like she had never felt before.  
Not long after breakfast, John came for his usual visit. He smiled broadly at her from the other side of the room and walked purposely down, limping slightly as he always did ever since the war. He sat on the bed next to his wife and took his son gently from her. She smiled tiredly at the two of them as they rocked back and forth.  
This was the last day they would spend in the hospital. Around lunch time John helped Mary to pack her things and wrap their son up against the bitter wind that was blowing outside. She said farewell to the nurses and they started down the many flights of stairs. John had booked a taxi to get them through the busy London traffic to the train station, and it was waiting patiently for them when they stepped out of the front doors. Once they were settled and properly secure, the driver pulled off into a thicket of cars and sleet. John stroked Mary's hair and asked her if she'd thought of a name yet.  
"James," she said happily.  
  
***  
  
21st August 1963  
Everybody loved the new baby, he was the centre of attention and everywhere he was taken he was accompanied by oohs and ahhs. Oh yes, the new baby was perfect, everybody said. Everyone but Sirius that was.  
But then, maybe that was because nobody seemed to have any time for Sirius any more. Maybe it was because, although he was still very young at four, he could still understand when people said, "perhaps this one will be less of a disappointment," and glanced in his direction.  
The Black family had invited everyone they knew (and that was a considerable number of people) into their home on that hot summer's day for an official welcoming party for little baby Regulus, who was currently being passed from person to person with praise floating in the air around him. Sirius had been told by his mother that on no uncertain terms was he to get under anybody's feet or even to speak unless he was spoken to.  
This actually suited Sirius just fine. He was sitting in a small cupboard under the boiler where the house elf, a nasty little beast by the name of Kreatcher, usually lived, as he found less people were likely to step on him here. He pulled at the itchy woollen suit he'd been forced to wear and watched, unseen, all the people searching through the kitchen for cucumber sandwiches, sticky tarts, cold sausages or refreshing glasses of sherry, all of which Kreatcher had prepared that morning.  
Sirius thought about each of the people as they (or more often than not their feet) went past him. Some of them he didn't know at all, others he knew all to well. There was great uncle Proteous who smoked one fat, stinking cigar after the other; Amos Grumping, from his father's work, and his wife, who coughed constantly into a lime green handkerchief. Aunt Celina, her husband Victor and their two children Cassiopeia and Rigel, both of whom were older than Sirius by only a few years, but who simply refused to even look at him, let alone let him play with them. Then there were a number of young men known only to Sirius' father it seemed. He talked to them as if they were the most important people in the world, Sirius thought, especially one of them called Tom, who was slightly younger than the rest with jet black hair and steely eyes. Sirius didn't like him. In fact, he slunk even further back into the cupboard because he couldn't help feeling that this man knew exactly where he was and might well tell his father, who would not be pleased.  
Then there were his mother's cousins, including Araminta, who had promptly deposited her belonging onto Sirius' head when she had arrived a number of hours ago and headed straight for the sherry. This had been one of the reasons Sirius had stormed off and hidden himself under the boiler; no one seemed to have noticed his absence since.  
The latest people to come into the kitchen were three of Sirius' other cousins; Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa. They wore matching dresses in different colours and ribbons in their hair; they began rummaging through the huge bowl of sweets at the end of the table.  
"Isn't Regulus so sweet!" cooed nine year old Andromeda as she unwrapped a blue and pink lollypop, "I couldn't believe he was so heavy."  
"He'll probably have a fat head like his brother when he grows up," said little Bellatrix nastily; she was only seven but she seemed to have developed a particularly wicked tongue in that short time. She snatched two lollies for herself out of the bowl and dropped the wrappers on the floor.  
"You're only jealous because you weren't allowed to hold him," said Narcissa, the oldest of the three girls at ten. Andromeda stooped to pick up her younger sister's rubbish as the other two started pushing each other, almost knocking over a bowl of pumpkin juice. Wrappers in hand, Andromeda went to stand back up, but lifting her head, she came exactly face to face with Sirius. He froze; she was going to reveal his hiding place and then Narcissa would pick him up by his ankles and dump him in the coal box, just like she always did.  
But Andromeda, after an initial startled look, grinned and winked at him before standing up, dropping the wrappers in the bin. "Why do you hate Sirius so much?" she asked.  
"Because mother says he's rude and he doesn't know what's good for him," replied Narcissa nonchalantly whilst un-sticking two fizzing wisbees, "he's a sap as well. He had a five minute fit because I stomped on some butterfly last summer, he tries to read all these really advanced books just to be a show-off little boffin, and he fought like something deranged when I put him in the coal box last time." She curled her lip and flipped her hair whilst she put one of the sweets into her mouth. She looked at her sticky fingers with slight distain. "You know he wanted his mother to explain about muggles a couple of months ago - he wanted to know what was so bad about them - why she was always saying they should all be blasted off the planet. When he realised they were 'simply people who couldn't do magic' he told her it was a stupid thing to hate them - he practically stood there and told his own mother she was stupid! What a nasty little ignorant boy." She spat out the last few words and popped the other sweet into her mouth and sucked it with an amused look on her face. Sirius scowled at her from in the shadows and gritted his teeth.  
Andromeda made a snorting noise. "He's right - it is stupid to hate muggles - there's nothing wrong with them."  
"Muggles stink!" cried Bellatrix. She folded her arms, stuck her chin out and stood next to Narcissa. Narcissa folded her arms too and went to say something, but Andromeda carried on.  
"And he's reading hard books because he's really clever - he's cleverer than you!" she shouted out at Narcissa.  
"Is not!"  
"Is too! Plus - I'm not surprised he fought back when you put him in the coal - that's really mean!"  
Narcissa sneered. "He just a little coward."  
"And you're a little idiot!" cried Andromeda. "I'm not going to be your friend any more because you're mean and stupid." And with that she spun on her heals and strode out of the kitchen into the garden.  
Narcissa looked quite upset. "Well - I don't want to be you're friend either!" she called out after Andromeda, but she didn't seem to hear. Sirius grinned from his hiding place. Maybe not everyone in his family was that bad after all.  
He felt something tickling his arm. Looking down, Sirius realised a rather large spider had scuttled its way halfway up his arm, and had now frozen in response to his movement. In one swift move, he grabbed the spider in his right hand. Peering out into the kitchen he saw Bellatrix and Narcissa had turned their backs to him and were picking at the food again whilst grumbling about how dreadful it was to have such a ghastly sister.  
Carefully, Sirius left his hiding place and crept up behind them, putting the spider into both his hands as it was too big for just the one. "Hey Narcy!" he cried using the name he knew she hated. The two girls spun round, and looked furious at the sight of him. He didn't give them a chance though. "I've got something for you!" he said cheerfully, and he forced the spider into Narcissa's open hands.  
The spider was obviously getting a little tired of being manhandled, so as soon as it sensed freedom it took a flying leap and landed perfectly onto Narcissa's front.  
The two girls began screaming simultaneously, hysterically. Narcissa went flying backwards trying to get the hairy beast off her, but he was a nimble little fellow and he just scampered up to her collar. "Get it off me!" she screamed. She spun in a circle trying to see where it had gone, colliding with Bellatrix as she went. The two girls tripped over their own feet and they crashed into the table knocking it completely over. Everything went flying, from French bread to Belgium chocolate ice cream, pumpkin juice and butterbeer, liver and spinach pâté was in their hair, jelly beans all over the floor, cakes, cookies, biscuits in all directions, soup on the walls, chicken in the sink, spaghetti hanging from the chandelier.  
Sirius didn't actually see much of this though, as he was crippled double with laughter.  
And still the two girls were screaming manically as the spider scooted across Narcissa's shoulder and hopped onto Bellatrix. She tried to slap it with her hand, but only knocked it off her and over to Sirius, who scooped the little fellow up once more. He stood up, facing the two girls, who were lying on the floor in a heap, covered in food.  
"Enjoy the trip?" he asked saucily.  
Narcissa looked like she might explode. "I'm going to kill you!" she screamed. But before she or Bellatrix could scramble to their feet, Sirius was gone, running up the great flight of stairs until he reached the third floor and the safety of his own room. He slammed the door and locked it.  
Everything was quiet for a moment, and Sirius, smiling, breathing deeply from the run, walked over to one of his bay windows and dropped the spider gently onto the ledge. The little fellow looked round at where he'd been dropped, then swiftly crawled up the glass and started making a web in the top right-hand corner. Sirius grinned up at him.  
"What shall I call you then?" he asked as his new found friend hopped from side to side, spinning his silky thread. He wanted to call him Andromeda, as she was the first person he could ever remember being nice to him, but he felt quite strongly that the spider was a boy.  
Someone began pounding on the door, but Sirius ignored them lost in his thought. "Sirius Black!" yelled his father furiously through the door, rattling at the silver knobbed handle, "come out here at once!" But Mr Black had placed such strong charms on the doors in his house there was no way of getting to his eldest son unless he himself chose to open the door, which he would not, because Sirius knew if he did he would only get a beating. Instead he started humming to himself as he thought of a name.  
"I'll call you Andy, shall I?" he said up at where the spider had almost finished building his impressive web. Almost in response, he dropped down back onto the ledge and ran with his many legs onto Sirius' outstretched hand, tickling his fingers and scampering across the thick and itchy wool of his suit.  
Andy it was then. Sirius smiled; perhaps he didn't have to worry about Regulus so much after all.  
  
***  
  
16th June 1965  
James Potter was running so fast he was getting dizzy. He jumped and spun, which only made it worse, but he was feeling silly and giddy, so he didn't care. Mid jump he grabbed a hold of his broomstick with both hands and took flight into the trees that bordered the field near his home. He began chasing a bee that zoomed past his face, pretending it was a snitch in a game of Quidditch; his father had told him all about Quidditch, they were going to watch a real live match next week and James could hardly wait. He took turns playing all the different players on the Cleansweep broom he'd got last Christmas; it was the newest and best broom anyone could buy, he'd told his parents so all last November, and he couldn't believe it when he'd woken up on Christmas morning to find he had one of his very own.  
He didn't even mind his father wasn't able to play with him; his knee hurt almost all the time now James knew, but when he came home from work in the evenings he would watch James showing off all his tricks and tell him if he could make anything better, or sometimes even teach him new tricks of his own.  
James dived to the ground and swerved to the left at the last minute. Now he pretended he was a pilot, just like his father had been in the war. He made a "dagga dagga dagga!" noise as he shot at the Nazi planes, and then he made a great spectacle of falling to the ground in an emergency landing, just like in the story his father told him before he went to sleep every night. Alone and lost in France, James darted between the trees, limping on his left leg where all the blood was pouring out. "Officer John Potter down in enemy territory," he whispered into his imaginary crackly radio. But James knew no one could hear him, because that's how the story went. He limped all the way to the little town of Mercién (the big oak tree furthest away from the house) where a French doctor snuck him into his house until his leg was healed. James had to climb the branches into the attic a number of times because the Nazis came to talk to the doctor about their own illnesses. But they never caught James; he always hid in time in the secret compartment. And when he escaped and made his way back to England by flying as high as he could stand over the field, which served very nicely as the Channel, he was given a medal for his bravery, and so was the doctor at the end of the war; but that was only after the Battle of Britain and the D-Day landings, which James also fought very bravely in, shooting down all the Nazis, so he never seemed to get to that part as his mother always called him into dinner before.  
However, that wasn't normally until about seven o'clock in the evening during the summertime. But that afternoon, instead of calling him from the door, his mother actually came and found him at about four. "James, sweetheart," she called to him in the sky as he was avoiding a flock of carrier pigeons who were flying the other way across the Channel. He stopped and looked down surprised; he hadn't even noticed her coming over. "James - can you come in please?"  
James began his descent, noticing she was wringing her hands. "Hi mum!" he said cheerily as he landed. She smiled back at him, but continued wringing her hands.  
"James, I'd like you to play inside now please." She held out his hand to take his and lead him in.  
James was a bit upset. "But I was playing pilot?" he said taking her hand; he knew he couldn't play that in the house.  
"I'm sorry poppet," she said as they began walking back to the house, "maybe you can carry on tomorrow?"  
James sighed. "Okay," he agreed; he had been playing all day after all and he was a bit tired.  
"Would you like to help mummy bake a cake?" she offered.  
James' eyes lit up. "Can it be a chocolate cake?" he asked eagerly.  
His mother laughed. "Of course." She picked him up and he hugged her neck all the way back to the house.  
  
***  
  
When John got home his was delighted to find both his wife and his son covered head to toe in chocolate icing. Mary had prepared a wonderful stew, and (once they were clean) they sat down to dinner and he listened amused to James' tales of defeating the Germans single-handedly and how he had been practicing his summersaults over the trees. When they had eaten the cake, James ran off to find the book he was reading; John couldn't remember what its title was as James seemed to read so many books he couldn't keep up with them.  
John sipped at the glass of red wine Mary had poured for him and rubbed his aching knee before he spoke to her. "Are you okay?" he asked concerned, knowing she must be quite upset.  
She began wringing her hands again and nodded her head. "I think so," she told him, "it was just such a shock."  
John nodded in agreement. "I've been talking with some friends at the Ministry. Some of them don't seem to know anything, that or they're just not telling, and the others, well."  
He stopped talking. James walked back into the kitchen holding a newspaper almost as big as he was; he was still quite a small boy for his age after all. He was frowning. "What does in.in.in-qui-ry mean daddy?"  
John took the Daily Prophet away from his son straight away. "Don't worry about that James," he said lightly, folding the paper in half and placing it on the table out of James' reach, but Mary knew he was just as anxious as she was sitting opposite him biting her lip.  
James frowned, concentrating. "It said.uh, it said 'Inquiry at the Min- ministry after third muggle - third spree of muggle killing in a month.' I don't understand it daddy?" Little James looked up at his parents, upset. "What does it mean?"  
John and Mary looked at one another; John sighed and picked his son up and placed him on his lap. "It means some grown-ups have to do some detective-work, that's all."  
James' face relaxed a little. "Like Martin the Mad Muggle?" asked James, talking about his favourite comic book character, "he solves mysteries all the time."  
"Yes," said Mary reassuringly, nodding her head, "a bit like Martin."  
"So everything's fine," the little boy said to himself and gave a decisive nod. He didn't like it when he didn't understand things, and he was obviously content now. He hopped off his father's lap and skipped upstairs to start running his bath before he went to bed. John watched him go, pleased his son wasn't worrying any more.  
But he knew everything was definitely not fine.  
  
***  
  
27th March 1966  
"Help me!" screamed the young boy running through the forest, "please, somebody - help me!  
He ran not knowing where he was going, branches tearing at his face and clothes. Tears streamed down his face.  
He had been playing near the edge of the forest, near his home, where his mother said he could. He had been chasing imaginary dragons when he'd seen a real-life fairy dart in front of his face, inviting him to play. Captivated, he'd followed her blindly deep into the forest, until she had flown high into the trees, abandoning him in a bramble thicket as twilight set in.  
He had wondered as twilight became night, calling and calling for his mother, but nobody answered back. Until.  
As the moon, fat and oily, rose up and over the tree line, the howling had begun. He tried to count how many there were to begin with. He tried to run away from the terrifying sound, but soon it seemed that it was coming from all directions, surrounding him. Stalking him.  
That was when he began to cry, to scream, to run like he had never run in his life. He prayed, he cursed, he cried out even when he didn't recognise the words he was saying. He wanted to go home, be in his bed safe and sound so desperately. "Help me!" he screamed once more.  
That was when he knew he heard something crash and break not far behind him.  
Panicking, he swerved and jumped, catching the first tree branch his hand found. He kicked with his feet and scrambled upwards; another branch, then another, not daring to look down. Just when he was starting to feel more confident, there was a snarl and an crunch below him. The tree shook.  
  
He screamed, loosing his grip slightly. His legs swung out from beneath him; he gasped and wrapped his arms around the trunk, flailing wildly with his feet. One foot found a branch to push against, but it was too late.  
There was a grunt from below, and before he knew what was happening, an incredible pain, a dozen needles piercing the calf muscle of his other dangling leg. He screamed, an unearthly sound if only there had been someone else around to hear it. In a spasm, a reflex more than a conscious move of defence, his other leg lashed out, connecting with something solid. A yelp of pain echoed in the trees and the needles were gone.  
The boy gasped, his eyes almost bursting out of his head. Hauling himself up with his arms and kicking with his one good leg, he found himself hopping up into another branch, then another, and soon, just like before, he was gaining height steadily. The tree shook again, and again, as if someone was running into it repeatedly rather than climbing, but he kept a hold, kept climbing until there was nowhere left to climb.  
The howling grew louder, closer, more ominous. He held onto the tree, perched on a branch, leaves choking him, obscuring his view. He cried, whispering for his mum over and over again as the howling seemed to encircle him. His leg throbbed with unbelievable pain, his head banged, his fingers were numb with the cold.  
The hours dragged on. The tree would shake every so often, and in one heart stopping moment he had begun to doze when the branch he had been gripping to tightly seemed to slip away from him, only to be grabbed again by mere fingernails. But he did grab it once more, and he didn't let go until the break of dawn.  
As the birds began to twitter the howling, the growling and the snorting faded away. He watched numbly, not knowing if he was even still breathing, as the dew grew on the leaves, the wood, his arms, his face.  
When the sun warmed the air and had truly chased away the night, he felt unseeing for the branch below him. Gingerly, using only one leg still, he clambered down the tree, and fell the last few feet, hitting the forest floor like a sack of lead. Blearily, he turned his head to the left and saw blood splattered all over the ground. It took a good few more minutes before he realised it was his own.  
After some time he lifted his swimming head and rolled onto his front, and using what little strength left in his shaking arms, pushed himself up and began walking, stumbling, limping in any direction his battered shoes would take him. The light dashed and cavorted about the trees, the leaves and twigs leapt about his feet, making it seemingly impossible to keep his balance for very long. There was a rushing sound filling his ears, a bitter taste in his mouth. The was a bright white light coming up ahead. He walked towards it.  
  
***  
  
Silvia poked angrily at the radio in her car. "Capitalist Pig!" she yelled, and smacked the button to silence it, not wanting to hear anymore nonsense. "What does he hope to accomplish?" she cried out angrily to no one but herself, but hearing the words out loud did make her feel better. Johnson was escalating again, sending more US troops, more firepower into Vietnam. "And what are they getting in return? Body-bags," she answered her own question. Fuming, she let out a string of profanities as she signalled and turned right into the long stretch of road that would take her home.  
She was a second year university undergraduate, balancing studying with a part-time job (from which she was now returning) and she had now found herself responsible for the Human Rights Society, as well as attending protests in London every other week and writing up petitions to send into parliament attempting to get Britain to end it's support for the American war effort and get the boys sent home. It was, all in all, tiring work.  
She started tapping her hands on the wheel to some sort of rhythm, perhaps one she had heard earlier that day, in an effort to keep her weary concentration focused. The road ahead was deserted; it always was. This is one messed up country, she thought bitterly, thinking about the nuclear arms race, the problems in the Africa, the cost of living amongst other things. Maybe she should emigrate?  
She rubbed her eyes. It was already six o'clock and she still had an essay to do for nine the next day.  
She looked up; and slammed on the breaks. Skidding, the battered old car screeched to a halt only just in time. Shocked, Silvia fumbled to push her hair from her eyes with shaking hands, and then yanked the door open.  
The boy who had stumbled out in front of her had collapsed in a heap. She ran over to him and rolled him over gently; she gasped when she saw the state of his leg. It had been terribly mauled, there was blood everywhere and he was dreadfully pale, which only highlighted the fact he was covered in dirt and grime.  
"Ohh my God," she breathed softly. Gently, she picked him up (he didn't really weigh a thing) and carried him over to her car. She carefully placed him across the back seat, got back into the driver's seat and turned the car around.  
  
***  
  
Tuesday evenings at the Ridgeway Hospital tended, for one reason or another, to be generally quiet.  
Not tonight.  
The A and E had already seen three car accidents, two cases of domestic violence, one man with a nail through his hand, another with concussion, and a whole party of Dutch women with food poisoning from a dodgy pub lunch. The staff, therefore, were only mildly put out when a young woman came running through their doors carrying a boy in her arms.  
"Somebody help me, please!" cried the woman as a number of staff raced towards her and the child.  
When they saw the wound though they became a little more concerned. The boy's leg between his knee and ankle had been practically shredded, he was drenched in blood. Some sort of animal attack?  
They took him off the shaking woman and placed him on a trolley as she explained what had happened. They loudly asked him for his name a couple of times, but he was quite clearly in no state to answer. Once in one of the operating theatres they cut the remains of his trousers away and convinced the young woman to remain outside. But before they could get any real procedure underway, the doors burst open.  
"You can't be in here," snapped one of the leading physicians, assuming it to be the woman again; but it was not. In fact, there were a great many more than just one person, he could tell without even looking up.  
The intruders didn't respond to his instruction. There was simply a shockingly bright light one second, and then none of them could remember what had happened at all.  
  
***  
  
The boy in fact did have a name, though he would have sworn for the past twenty four hours that he didn't. But now, lying stiffly between sterile sheets, he seemed to be hearing it over and over again, different voices, though they were all saying the same thing.  
He felt like he was swimming through his delirium, slowly, like as if through treacle. He could feel his fingers once more, his head was clearing, his mouth was dry, but his tongue was working.  
"Mum?" he whispered softly; he knew he could hear her voice. "Mum - what happened?"  
He felt someone grasp his hand. "Remus," she said, her voice tight "you - you've been bitten. By a werewolf."  
  
***  
  
4th February 1968  
"He broke my broom - he snapped it in half!"  
"Because he hid in a suit of armour and chased me down the corridor!"  
"Because you tried to kill Andy!"  
"Enough!" screamed Mrs Black, her face like stone. "Sirius, just what do you think you're doing keeping such a disgusting creature in your room?"  
Sirius stood in the hallway, his mouth open in spite of himself. This was unfair even by the normal standards. He clenched his fists and puffed up his chest. "Because he's the only thing in this house that doesn't have convulsions at the site of me!"  
Mrs Black narrowed her eyes dangerously. "Don't use big words trying to be clever with me my boy." She stooped and grabbed a handful of his shirt. "You just be glad you're father's not here-"  
"Yeah - well - he's not, is he?" cried Sirius, wriggling free of her arthritic old hands "he's dead, and I'm glad because I hated him! Vicious bast-"  
She smacked him cleanly across the face. "Watch your language!" she hissed. She pulled Regulus over to her. "If you weren't such a waste of space boy, maybe you would be treated slightly better? Now apologise to your brother."  
Sirius looked back at her, not giving her the satisfaction seeing him rub his stinging face. "I will not," he said firmly. This time when she raised a hand against him, he was prepared for it. He ducked the blow, causing her to over-balance. He ran past her and shoved into Regulus; grabbing his shoulders and slamming him into the wall. He put his face right up to that of his brother's. "Come into my room again and I'll kill you - got it?" Regulus nodded fearfully, and Sirius ran for it, as he always seemed to do in this house, barricaded himself into his room and flung himself onto the bed, willing himself not to cry.  
The tears, however, came anyway. Why did everyone hate him so much? What was wrong with him - what had he done wrong? His whole life it seemed was spent in this room, avoiding the constant comparisons, the torment, the violence.  
Sirius knew his mother believed she had received the 'wrong son' nine years ago. Sirius personally felt he'd received completely the wrong family. He was nothing like them! he thought, pounding his fist into his pillow. They were cruel and destructive. Sirius would spend hours here, in his beloved room, building castles for Andy to play in, only to have them destroyed, writing stories, only to have them mocked. He had to hide his books or Regulus would put inky hands all over them and his mother would ridicule them. She seemed to think his choice of reading material was all too often dangerous and was giving him corruptive ideas, making him even more of a disappointing son.  
He didn't care - he went out of his way now to 'disappoint' her, and because he had never once pleased her in his life he had been able to perfect the act to a refined art.  
He had meant what he'd said about his father as well. He was glad he was dead, because all he had ever seen Sirius as being fit for was to shine his belt buckle on. Sniffling, he now rolled up one of his trouser legs and looked at the faint scars that had left behind. He looked at the pinkish red lines for a long time and then felt his cheek; it was still stinging. He looked over to where Andy was perched on the windowsill. "No one's even going to hit me again Andy," he swore to the spider, "not ever."  
He sat up and rested against his pillows. Andy, who had now grown to the size of one of Mrs Black's china saucers under good care, hopped off the sill and scuttled over to Sirius to run up and down his arms and shoulders. He was lucky to still be there, thought Sirius as he came to rest on the top of his head. Regulus had made it into some sort of sport; sneaking into Sirius' room and trashing Andy's webs, doing his best to squish the spider in the process. But luckily for Sirius (and for Andy to) he was a crafty little spider who not only could run faster than even Sirius could, also had many hiding places to escape to, well out of the reach of the youngest Black son.  
Unfortunately for Regulus (but not for Sirius though) he had no such hiding spaces, and as a result had often found himself on the wrong side of the coal box door, upside down where Sirius had dropped him in by his ankles. "No one picks on my friends and gets away with it!" he would call before slamming the door shut, leaving his brother in darkness.  
The fun would never last though. Regulus was always the favourite, always the first to be believed, his was always the side that was taken. Their mother would shriek like a banshee, spewing profanities into Sirius' face, cursing the day he was born, praying for the day when he would be gone. But this was most likely the only thing Sirius and his mother had in common.  
He went to the corner of the room and pulled one of the panels off the wall. Nobody else knew this secret compartment even existed, as Sirius had spent months a few summers ago fashioning it himself. He stepped into the wall cavity, stepping on the wooden boards he had put on the floor of the narrow little corridor. In fact it was so narrow in there his shoulders barely fit between the two sides; if he grew much more he would have to walk along there sideways. But Sirius didn't mind that, because it was his and it was quiet.  
On the walls were pinned his stories of far away lands and heroes and dragons, pictures he had drawn, letters from Andromeda he had received. On the floor were his favourite books, stacked on top on one another, safe from his brother, his mother, even the dratted house elf. There were boxes of food, so that he never even had to leave his room for days at a time, thus avoiding his family completely for a short, blissful time. Until now, this was where his broom had lived, but Regulus had got a hold of it from the garden where Sirius had stupidly left it and destroyed it. He cursed himself for that; he loved flying.  
But it was at the end of the wall that Sirius had spent most hours working on. He stood and looked at what was there, tracing his finger from one side of the grid like display to the other. He looked down at Andy, who was waiting at his feet.  
"Only two years - and seven months now," he said, half a smile lighting up his tear-stained face.  
  
***  
  
9th April 1970  
Peter loved it when his sister was home. She always had so much to say; even now, sitting at the dinning room table that evening she was holding court, telling them all about her time at Hogwarts. Even though she had been back home for almost a week now it seemed no one ever got tired of her stories.  
"But - y'know what I mean? It was totally pathetic - it was like everyone was obsessed or something - she ain't even pretty or nothing!"  
"This Lucius boy mustn't be very nice though Jane," reasoned their mother, "you gave him all that help with his homework - and you even took the blame for him in the transfiguration lesson. Surely getting detention on behalf of someone else would merit them asking you to the ball; he can't be very clever dear or would have realised that."  
"Oh no - he's well clever mum, but he has to do loadsa Quidditch practice - that's why I was helping him with his homework." She scowled and poked at her mashed potato with her fork. "It's that Narcissa Black - everyone thinks she so pretty coz she'd tall and blond - I don't think she's pretty - she's dead pale - and I'm way skinnier than her." She thought for a second. "D'you think I'd look good with blond hair?"  
"I think-"  
"Do you want any more sausages, Peter?" his mother said, interrupting him. Peter forgot what he was saying and considered it. He really was quite full, but the thought of sausages sitting uselessly in a pan whilst he could be eating them made him nod his head. "You know where they are then," said his mother, picking up his plate and handing it to him.  
Peter hopped down off his chair; he still hadn't grown much so it was quite a distance to drop. "Get me some pumpkin juice whilst you're up yeah?" asked Jane.  
"Okay," said Peter eagerly nodding his head. He liked it when he could do things for her. So he trotted off, his mother asking Jane if she only wanted blond hair to impress Lucius, and let the door between the dinning room and the kitchen swing shut behind him. He had to jump up to reach the sausages (they were still hot in the pan) and it took him a while to pour the juice into a glass without spilling it everywhere. He carefully put everything away, picked the plate and glass up, and headed back towards the door.  
He stopped before he opened it though, because he heard his name mentioned. "Oh, Peter's not that bad," said his father. Looking through the keyhole Peter could see his sister roll her eyes.  
"He's so annoying though!" she cried. "He won't leave me alone - it's like he don't have a life own his own - he's gotta nick mine!" She took a drink from her wineglass, which Peter only now realised was almost full. "He's such a sap - I bet he end's up in Hufflepuff next year - I ain't even gonna talk to him if he does."  
"Now now," said their mother, "our family's always been in Gryffindor."  
"Exactly," said Jane, "he's so greedy and clumsy though - y'know - I might not speak to him anyway - even if he's in Gryffindor - none of my friends will like him."  
"We'll see," said their mother, starting to clear the plates away.  
Peter looked down at his shoes. Blinking his eyes furiously before he opened the door, he walked in and held out the glass of pumpkin juice. "There you go," he said to his sister cheerfully.  
"Ahh - cheers sweetie," she replied in a sickly tone.  
  
***  
  
30th July 1970  
James woke to the sound of birdsong floating outside his window. Full of energy, he bounded downstairs to say goodbye to his father before he went to work. On entering the kitchen though, he was met by both his mother and his father. His father was sitting at the old oak table eating bacon and eggs, but his mother was standing, seemingly waiting for James to come through the door. "We've got something for you," she said secretively, and picked a letter off the counter. "How much do you love me?"  
Guessing what it might be, James gave out a small gasp and ran over to his mother in such a way that his father laughed at his enthusiasm. His mother held the letter high above her head, making James jump for it. "I want a kiss first," she said playfully, tapping her check. James, however, had grown considerably over the summer, and with relatively little effort was able to jump and snatch the letter out of her grasp. Grinning, he turned to go sit down and open the letter, but after a thought a spun round and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek anyway, making her and his father laugh even more.  
With vigour, he flung himself into the chair next to where his father was sitting and tore at the top of the letter. Shaking the contents out, he soon found the particular part he was looking for. Grinning even more broadly he read it out to his parents; "Dear Mr Potter, we are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." He looked up and his parents. His mother was smiling and slightly teary-eyed, his father ruffled his hair.  
"We'll done son," he said warmly, "we're so proud of you."  
  
***  
  
Peter knocked repetitively on his sister's bedroom door. "Jane - wake up!" he cried excitedly. He kept knocking on her door and looked at the letter in his other hand; he had been accepted to Hogwarts.  
"I've been accepted to Hogwarts!" he called through the door, "c'mon Jane - look at my letter!"  
The door snapped open violently. "It's six thirty in the morning," she said though gritted teeth, her eyes still closed. "I didn't even know there was a six thirty in the morning! What the Hell d'you want?!"  
He held up his letter. "Look - I got into Hogwarts!"  
She looked at him incredulously. "And you're surprised why?"  
"Now we get to go to school together!" he said happily.  
"Oh yay," she replied unenthusiastically, turned on her heals, and slammed the door in his face.  
  
***  
  
"Ha ha! "yelled Sirius from the other side of the door. "They let me in and now I won't have to see you're ugly old face for a whole YEAR! " He started dancing round his room clutching his Hogwarts acceptance letter whilst his mother pounded on the door.  
"And how exactly are you going to pay for everything you ungrateful little toad!" she shrieked though the keyhole. "You don't have any money you snivelling little worm!"  
"You mean the money I don't have in my own Gringotts account?" called out Sirius whilst showing the letter to his spider Andy, who had now reached the height and width of a good sized telephone. The pounding stopped. "Oh yeah - that's right - I do have my own account - and it has - oh - my life's saving in there! Yep," said Sirius casually, "that's quite a lot of Galleons - I can buy all my own clothes, books, even a wand." Even as he said it though, he crossed over to the other side of the room and pulled the panel off the wall, revealing his secret compartment. "Oh - but wait!" he cried in mock surprise, "it looks like I have all of those things too! Guess I'm going to Hogwarts after all!"  
"You puss filled maggot! You pitiful excuse for a son! You'll leave this house when I say you can leave!"  
Sirius stuck his head back out of the wall cavity and looked at the door curiously. "I thought you couldn't wait for me to get out of here oh loathsome one?"  
He could actually hear her spitting through the wood. "You disgraceful brute! What are people going to say about 'the noble and most ancient house of Black' when they see you?!"  
"Karma?" wondered Sirius out loud.  
  
***  
  
Remus looked at his parents apprehensively from across the kitchen table. They were taking turns in looking through his letter from Hogwarts; his little brother and sister, Jay and Fern, were hiding under the table at his feet, waiting to hear what their parents had to say.  
His father sighed. "This isn't like the letter I had," he said, shaking his head. He flipped through to one of the other pages and carried on reading.  
"This new fellow, Dumbledore, he is rather.open-minded, I've heard," offered his mother by way of explanation. "I must say - I really didn't think they were going to accept you Remus."  
"But that's not the question now - is it?" interjected his father. "The question is - do we let him go?"  
There was a gasp from under the table, making both of Remus' parents jump. Fern wriggled out from beneath Remus' feet, closely followed by Jay. "Remus has to go to Hogwarts!" she cried, clasping her little hands together and jumping up and down on the balls of her feet. Jay nodded his head in agreement. Remus himself held his breath.  
"This is not a sentimental matter," snapped their father making the twins wince. "Of course we want Remus to go to school, but we have to think about the safety of others, we can risk anyone else getting hurt." Remus looked guiltily into his lap.  
He was a monster. He hated himself, and if he was honest, he had given up hope of going to Hogwarts a long time ago. He wasn't normal, he didn't deserve to be around others who, like his father had rightly said, he could do terrible harm to. His life revolved around the lunar cycle; the full moon filled his nightmares, but the pain, the transforming, was so much worse than the fear. He would never risk inflicting that on someone else.  
  
And yet, here he was this morning, looking at the back of an acceptance letter with his name at the top. "Dumbledore has said here though," argued his mother, "that they are willing to take great precautions to enable him to go - they even have somewhere secret for him to change - and if there are going to be any breakthroughs in that potion they keep telling us about - well, he'll be in the best place to have access to it."  
Remus' father looked back at the letter. "I - I'm just concerned.concerned that we won't be able to take care of him any more." He said carefully, not looking up.  
"But we won't be able to take care of him forever," said his mother softly. His father looked at her, then at Remus. Taking a steady breath he passed the letter over the table and handed it to his son.  
"No, I guess we won't."  
  
***  
  
Lily Evans had never been.an ordinary girl. Not really.  
There was the ballet class for example, where she had simply thought that her teacher's fur handbag had looked like a dead rabbit - and well, the next minute it really was a dead rabbit.  
Or there was the other time when her sister Petunia had blamed some broken china on her, but when they had gone with their mum to the china cabinet - there was nothing broken at all.  
Then there was the time she had passed her Grade II piano with Honours, and quite suddenly it seemed to be snowing. In June. Yes - it appeared that wherever she went, Lily was accompanied by exploding teacups, dancing plant life and singing telephones. Even traffic lights seemed to change if her mum was in a rush, and her dad's ties had developed an unsettling habit of ironing themselves over the last couple of years.  
Therefore, perhaps, it wasn't such a surprise on that sunny July morning that Lily Evans found herself holding a letter between slightly trebling hands offering her a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
Her mother, sitting to the left of Lily, was pulling off her hat and fob watch, rubbing her aching feet after a long nightshift on the paediatrics ward. Petunia, her older sister by three years, was the opposite side of the table eating cereal that reminded Lily strongly of soggy cardboard, and seemed to taste the same as well. Her father, sitting to her right, had been reading the paper, but looked up when he realised one of the letters that had fallen that morning on the front doormat had been opened by his youngest daughter.  
"What you got there Lil?"  
She didn't really know what to say. "Uh.it's from a school," she offered to begin with.  
"Oh yes?" said her father.  
"Yes - it seems.it seems that I'm a witch."  
"Ah," said her father nodding, "that would explain a lot." And he went back to reading his newspaper. 


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two 1st September 1970  
It was five thirty in the morning, but Sirius Black was already wide awake. Silently, he pulled a jumper over his head, then took a moment to straighten his long, dark hair before throwing the last few items into his heavy trunk. He did one last mental check, going through everything he needed; clothes, books, money, equipment. Confident he hadn't forgotten anything, he picked up a rather large box from off his desk and placed it on the floor.  
"C'mon Andy," he said to his pet spider, trying to coax him into the enclosed space. The spider looked at him form his corner at the top of the window pane with a surprisingly dubious expression for a spider. "C'mon Andy," repeated Sirius, "it won't be for that long - I promise."  
Slowly, Andy uncurled his long and fury black legs and began crawling down the wall. He reached the wooden floorboards and stopped. "C'mon - there's a good boy," said Sirius encouragingly, giving the box a small shake. The spider ever so slowly crept towards the container and put his front legs tentatively in. "Good boy - that's it," said Sirius gingerly. As soon as he was in Sirius snapped the lid shut and said through the air holes; "I'll let you out as soon as I can - okay?" He then balanced the box on top of the trunk and pulled his shoes on.  
Stepping softly, he walked over to his bedroom door (which was locked as always) and listened carefully. Silence. "Good," breathed the young boy. That was exactly what he'd wanted. He crossed over the room again to the window ledge and spent a good five minutes edging it open, trying not to make a sound. Once there was a big enough gap, he leant out, looking at the drop below, and gulped slightly. He was on the third floor, which not only meant a considerable drop, but he would have to make his way past one of the drawing rooms, his mother's bathroom and the side entrance to the kitchen.  
He pulled his head back in from the chilly September dawn and picked up the broomstick laying on his bed. He took a moment to smile at it. He remembered quite clearly just how upset he'd been when Regulus had broken his own broom, and now got quite a fulfilling sense of glee in taking his in return.  
He sat himself precariously on the length of wood and took a good hold of the trunk. Luckily, he didn't have all that many possessions, so it wasn't that big a trunk, but it was still heavy and awkward. He swore a number of times under his breath as he hefted it out of the window and brought it down (a little quicker than intended) to the ground. He then went back up to collect Andy and the satchel he was going to bring on the train with him. Just as he was putting the broom into the trunk, he realised he'd forgotten about something. He jumped back on the broomstick and hovered in front of his window, which needed to be opened once more, and shot back into his room.  
It was almost six o'clock now; he would have to hurry as people would be starting to stir. He raced over to the secret panel in his bedroom wall and yanked it off. As quietly as he could, he ran to the end and picked up the pencil that he always left lying on the floor. With great satisfaction he crossed off the very last box in his grid.  
"Hogwarts here I come," he said softly, a broad smile on his face. And with that he hoped out the window for the last time, ensuring it was shut along with the secret wall panel, said goodbye to his beloved room and flew back down to his belongings. He threw his bag over his shoulder, picked up Andy and his trunk, and walked down the alleyway into the street. He hummed all the way to the train station.  
  
James was bounding around the car like an over-sized, over-excited puppy dog. "Canwegoyetcanwegoyetcanwegoyet?!" he cried, almost running into his father as he carried his trunk out of the house and rested briefly on the ground.  
"We'll be going in a minute," said John warmly, rubbing the small of his aching back. "Just let me put this in the boot - okay?" James nodded eagerly.  
"Is there anything I can do to help?" he chirped, rocking up and down on the spot, his glasses slipping off his nose.  
His mother poked her head out of the window. "Why don't you come here and have some breakfast?" she asked, a smile on her face. James didn't really feel like eating anything; his stomach was squirming and wriggling too much. But he could smell it was bacon she was cooking, and he figured this would be the last time he'd get to have a meal with her for a long time. So, after he'd helped his father (helped being a rather strong word in John's opinion) he ran into the kitchen and flung himself into a chair.  
  
Mary wondered how he was able to eat anything at all he was jabbering so much; but eat he did, jamming bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes and toast into his mouth, telling her about how he was going to be in Gryffindor, just like she and John were, and how he couldn't wait to see all the houses playing Quidditch, and about learning transfiguration, and charms, and potions, and his new room, and all the new people, and travelling on the train, and did he mention he was going to be in Gryffindor?  
I'm going to miss him so much, thought Mary sadly.  
  
Remus Lupin was rooted to the spot. He was going to be sick. "Come on Remus," said his mother gently, "let's get in the car." But his legs weren't working, his head was banging too much to even think about it.  
Remus wasn't particularly fond of cars anyway; too confined, too rickety they were, but that wasn't why he was having problems putting one foot in front of the other. He didn't want to go, he wanted to stay at home with his family, he wanted them to look after him, he wanted to be safe.  
In spite of himself though, he found he was moving towards the car and he sat stiffly in the back seat. Jay and Fern flung themselves in beside him; they were far more excited about his leaving for Hogwarts than he was, which was in a way comforting, and in another way really not. Remus took a deep but shaky breath and fastened his seatbelt. "Have we got everything?" asked his father, more to his mother than to Remus. She nodded. "Right," he said decisively and got into the driver's seat.  
As they reversed out of the driveway, Remus looked hungrily onto his home with wide eyes, willing it not to disappear from view. But disappear it did, leaving the poor boy looking for a brief time at the very forest he'd got himself so lost in that fateful night. He looked instead into his lap, his hands clasped and twisting in it.  
What would happen when he arrived at the station, the school, his room? Would anyone like him? Would he like them? What if he couldn't keep up with the work? How, where, when would he change each month?  
What if he infected someone?  
The thought made his shudder physically. Thinking he was cold perhaps, Fern snuggled up next to him. "I wish I was going," she whispered quietly to him. Jay nodded from her right side.  
"You have to promise to write and tell us everything - okay," he said earnestly.  
"Okay," replied Remus after a moment, the sickness fizzing and squirming in his stomach dissipating ever so slightly.  
  
"Right - when we get to the station we're going to split up okay - I'm gonna go with my friends, and you can go and find some other first years, alright?"  
"Okay," said Peter, who was sitting in the back seat of the taxi next to his sister, Jane. He hoped though that when they got there she'd change her mind; after all, it was his first day of school.  
She flipped her hair and fiddled with a few strands, wrapping them round and round her finger. "Does it look alright?" she asked her mother. She'd died it blond over the summer.  
"It looks fine sweetheart," her mother assured her, "but promise me you will do some work this year, not just run around after boys."  
"Oh mum." A slight grin was on her face. She gave her mother a small shove. "Of course I'm gonna work - it's me NEWTs this year, innit?"  
Their mother didn't look too convinced, but she smiled anyway. Peter looked out the window; they were getting closer to London, he could tell from the buildings.  
  
Lily Evens looked from her ticket, up to the station, back to the ticket, back up to the station.  
"It definitely says Nine and Three Quarters," she said exasperated. Her dad looked at the ticket over her shoulder. He was the only one of her family that had come with her that morning; her mum had had to work a shift at the hospital, and her sister Petunia had flat out refused to come. She seemed to have taken some personal insult from the fact that her sister was a witch, something Lily really didn't understand, and quite frankly had been a bit upset about.  
"You're right," said her dad thoughtfully, "though I can't imagine what it means by it though."  
They stood looking at platform's nine and ten at Kings Cross station, trying to decide what to do next; it was already half past ten and Lily was getting just a bit worried.  
"Excuse me," came a voice from behind them. Lily turned round to see a boy of her own age with long black hair tied into a ponytail, a large trunk and a box wriggling disconcertingly under his arm. He was all alone.  
"Hello?" said Mr Evens inquiringly. The boy looked from the ticket and then up to Lily again.  
"Are you trying to find the Hogwarts Express?" he asked genuinely, his eyes alight and attentive. He blinked a couple of times before saying, "y'know - platform Nine and Three Quarters?"  
"Oh yes," breathed Lily, finding her voice. She had been quite taken aback by the boy's forwardness.  
"You have to walk through one of the barriers," he explained, as if this was a perfectly normal option - like turning left at a set of traffic lights or exiting at Junction 11 on the M4. "I'm not too sure which one - but I think it's the one over there (he pointed with the arm with the box under it; Lily wished he wouldn't as it squirmed even more) the one between platforms nine and ten. Makes sense - doesn't it?"  
"Er - yes," said Lily, thinking that actually nothing had really made sense over the last couple of weeks. But if this boy knew what he was doing, she thought it best not to ignore him.  
"Shall we try and do it together?" asked the boy. Lily nodded, so they made their way over to the barrier. Mr Evens hugged his daughter goodbye, and stood back as the two of them prepared to go through, what looked to be, a perfectly solid wall.  
  
Sirius ran at the barrier he hoped would take him to the right platform, the red-headed girl at his side. The wall seemed to melt around them, spitting them out on the other side. Sirius took a moment to stare around in wonder, then grabbed a hold of the girl's arm to stop her from crashing headlong into the track itself; it appeared she had closed her eyes as they were running through. She opened them now and gently pealed her fingers off the trolley she was pushing. "It's okay Merc," she said reassuringly to the brown owl in the cage perched atop her trunk, and stroked his head. She then looked at Sirius. "That was wicked," she said enthusiastically, "how did you know what to do?"  
Sirius shrugged. "Someone told me - shall we find the train?" The girl nodded, a smile on her face, her cheeks a little flushed. They each took a hold of their trolleys, and pushed them round the corner of the wall they had just come through.  
They didn't have to go very far to find the train. Right in front of them, larger than life, sat a scarlet engine contently puffing purple smoke. "Oh wow!" exclaimed Lily, her eyes wide in wonder. Sirius had to agree with her - it was amazing.  
And there were so many people too - students chatting with their friends, some already in their school robes, some not; people chasing cats; first years standing nervously with their families; families leaning in the train windows, students leaning out. Lily looked a little overwhelmed.  
"Sirius!" a voice cried over the crowd. He looked around for its origin, but he didn't need to look far. Andromeda, flanked by a number of other sixth years, was waving at him as she walked towards him.  
"Oh - hi!" said Sirius back. "That's my cousin," he told the red-headed girl. Andromeda beckoned him over to her. "Well - bye," he said, and pushed his trolley quickly over to them, extremely relieved to see a friendly face after so long without one.  
Andromeda beamed. "Hey you!" she said warmly, "how you doing? Did you come by yourself?" Sirius nodded, a little intimidated by how big her friends were. Andromeda seemed to pick up on this. "Oh - this is Amy, Lucy, Michael and the one at the back with the purple hair is Crackers. Don't ask why we call him that," she added quietly to Sirius, making him laugh, a little more relaxed. "Everyone, this is my cousin Sirius." They all waved and said hello. Sirius couldn't help but smile.  
"Do you all want to meet Andy?" he asked innocently.  
  
As Severus Snape stepped off the train there was a chorus of shrieks and screams to his right as a group of older students all seemed to jump away from a much younger boy holding a box. Unfortunately, as Severus was stepping off, another boy, also distracted by the commotion, was stepping on. His head turned the other way he smacked straight into Severus and dropped his trunk directly onto his foot.  
"Nugh!" he uttered in a most undignified fashion.  
"Sorry!" cried the boy, hefting the trunk back into his arms and pushing his glasses back up his nose from where they had slipped down.  
"Watch where you're going," snapped Severus, resisting the temptation to rub his throbbing foot. He scowled and shoved past the boy with the glasses.  
"Hey - you walked into me!" he cried to his back, but Severus ignored him.  
  
Peter was looking round at everything going on; the platform was chaotic. People were bustling round everywhere, yelling, chatting and throwing things. He looked up at his sister. Their parents had just left, telling Jane to look after her younger brother. She seemed to be looking for someone else though.  
"Jane - should we get on the train?" She ignored him, her head turning left and right.  
"All aboard!" cried the conductor and blew his whistle. People started swarming towards the carriages.  
"Jane," said Peter, tugging on her sleeve.  
"Oh alright," she snapped, grabbed her trunk and swung it onto the train. She then rolled her eyes, jumped back onto the platform, and helped Peter up, who was struggling, the trunk far too big for him to carry by himself.  
They pulled their things along the corridor with a lot of other people, some going the same way as them, others not.  
A tall, hansom boy who looked older than Jane, but who had to be in the same year as her, walked past, causing Jane to drop her trunk on Peter's foot. "Ow!" he squawked, but she ignored him.  
Her hand flew to her hair, smoothing it behind her ear. "Hi Lucius," she said breathlessly. He slowed his pace slightly, slid his eyes up and down her, and let half a smile curl around his lips.  
"Petigrew," he said silkily, then carried on walking.  
"Hi," she said again softly to his back, her hand resting on her chest.  
  
"Oi!" cried an older boy with purple hair behind Peter, "can we move it along some time before Christmas?!"  
"Sorry!" squeaked Jane, yanked her trunk off of Peter's foot, and carried hastily on up the corridor.  
  
Lily knocked on the compartment door before opening it. There was already someone in it. "Oh - sorry," she said, "I was trying to find an empty one." She went to close the door again.  
"You can sit here - I mean, if you like?" said the boy timidly. Lily smiled gratefully; it seemed most of the train was already full. He stood up, unsure, then helped her drag her things in and shut the door. They pushed her trunk under the seats and she put her owl next to her as she sat opposite the boy.  
"I'm Lily," she offered.  
"Oh - I'm Remus," he replied.  
"Sorry?" she asked, then was instantly ashamed of herself. She shouldn't be so rude when he'd been so friendly to her. He didn't seem to mind though.  
"That's okay," he said, he seemed quite shy Lily thought, "it's Remus - Remus Lupin. It's not a very common name."  
"It's really nice," she assured him. He gave her a half smile then looked out the window quickly, biting his lip, his hands tucked under his legs.  
The final whistle blew, signalling that the train was about to depart. The boy called Remus jumped up and pressed his face to the window, searched for a moment, then started waving at someone. Lily followed his line of sight; it looked like he was waving his family goodbye, his eyes were bright and shiny. Lily sat back in her seat and wished her mum and dad goodbye, hoping they might be able to hear her thoughts; she was a witch after all, and she was thinking so loudly, maybe, just maybe they would hear her. She hoped.  
The train was picking up speed, the station very quickly disappeared, and soon they were racing through smaller buildings, then houses, then just trees and fields. The sun was beaming bright but weakly, the clouds were white and fluffy. Lily wondered how long it would take them to get to Hogwarts; she didn't even know what part of the country it was in.  
The two of them sat quietly, lost in thought, for a good long while. Lily curled her legs up and leaned her head back. She was thinking about what the evening might be like, but to be honest, she really had no idea, so that only left her thinking about unpleasant things, like maybe she wouldn't know where to go, maybe she'd get lost? Maybe she was the only one from a non-magical family? What if she wasn't enough of a witch, what if she couldn't do magic at all and they all laughed at her? What if-  
Her owl gave a loud hoot, breaking her from her reverie. He was obviously not getting enough attention, so Lily leant over with a smile and scratched his head; he cooed in appreciation.  
"That's a nice owl," said Remus, making Lily jump for the second time. She smiled at him.  
"Thanks," she said, "I got him from the pet shop in Diagon Ally."  
"What's his name?" he asked, curiously.  
"Merc - it's short for Mercutio." He looked blankly at her. "Y'know - from Shakespeare?" He shook his head. "You don't know who Shakespeare is!" cried Lily incredulous, but the boy just bit his lip and shook his head again. Lily laughed, "well, I certainly feel better I didn't know I was a witch if you don't know who Shakespeare is."  
Remus sat up. "You're muggle-born then?" Lily nodded. "Oh," he breathed, "cool." He thought a moment. "How did you find Diagon Ally then?" he asked.  
"I got a letter explaining everything," she told him, then laughed, "that was an interesting letter I can tell you." They both laughed, the atmosphere in the room getting a little easier.  
"So - how come you don't have an owl?" she asked the mousy haired boy. He shifted a little uncomfortably.  
"They - I - don't really get along with owls," he said, "or any other kind of pets, really." He looked down into his lap.  
"That's a shame," said Lily genuinely. They were quiet again for a moment. Remus looked as if he wanted to say something after a few minutes, but like he couldn't find the right words. Lily looked at him in what she hoped was an encouraging way; she really didn't know why he was so intimidated by her, she wasn't going to bite him.  
After a moment or two, he took a breath and raised his head to look at her. "So - if you're muggle-born - that...well I guess that means - you don't know what Quidditch is?" He looked at her hopefully, maybe anticipating a rebuff. But Lily shook her head with a grin.  
"No - I really don't know much at all," she said honestly, "what's Quidditch?"  
Remus' face lit up, changing his whole demeanour. "Oh - you wait!" he said excitedly, "it's the best game ever!"  
  
Morwenna Goggins hadn't spoken for almost an hour now. How could she? The two boys who had invaded her compartment hadn't let her get a word in edgeways they were talking so much. She didn't mind though; they were quite interesting.  
The first boy who had burst in on her, making her jump and drop the book she was reading ("Hogwarts: A History") onto her toes, had messy black hair and round glasses. His name was James. The second boy had only joined them when the train had started moving. He'd asked timidly if they were first years; when they nodded he asked if he could join them. Morwenna was barely able to ask his name before the two of them began jabbering, laughing and joking. His name was Peter.  
It seemed both boys families were traditionally in Gryffindor, something they all had in common, thought Morwenna, but was unable to say as the two of them seemed barely to draw breaths between anecdotes, especially James. Just as she was going to ask them if either of them had any older siblings at the school, the door slid open for a third time.  
A boy, another first year, poked his head in their compartment; he had quite greasy, long hair, a hooked nose and a sour look on his face. He addressed Peter who was sitting the nearest. "Excuse me, but-" he trailed off at the sight of Morwenna. There was a pause. "Goggins," he said curtly with a raised eyebrow.  
Morwenna stared back unflinchingly. "Snape," she said batting her eyelids slowly, as if challenging him. The boy set his jaw and looked briefly at James, before turning on his heals and walking back out the door, snapping it shut behind him.  
"Who was he?" asked Peter in a slightly high-pitched voice.  
"I met him earlier," said James, "he was dead rude."  
"Severus Snape," supplied Morwenna, "he lives near me - nasty boy," she added.  
"In Ireland?" questioned Peter, "he didn't have an accent like-"  
Morwenna shook her head, cutting him off. "I moved to Dorset when I was little girl, his family lives about seven miles away." She folded her arms and sank back in her seat. "My family was always being sociable, inviting them round when ever we had parties or whatever. We all went to the Quidditch World Cup one year, ugh what a nightmare."  
"Why?" asked James, "what happened?"  
"Oh, he's just so...horrid!" cried Morwenna, "he hates muggles, and he's really interested in the dark arts, he was always cursing insects and stuff when he thought no one was looking. Plus, he tormented one of my little sisters, Teresa, something rotten because she's afraid of the dark."  
James glowered out of the window in the direction Severus had departed and 'huphed' to himself. They sat for a few moments in quiet, before the young black haired boy seemed to realise something. "Hang on a sec," he cried, "did you say you went to the Quidditch World Cup?!"  
  
Sirius was definitely feeling sick now. He'd been sitting with Andromeda and her friends for a good few hours on the train, unusually quiet, just listening to the sixth years laughing and telling each other stories about their summer holidays. Andromeda noticed Sirius wasn't his usual rambunctious self an hour or two into the journey, and since then had been asking him if he was okay every twenty minutes and trying to involve him in their conversation. But Sirius would just smile politely, then continue staring out the window.  
The trouble was, as nice as Andromeda's friends were, they only served to remind Sirius of the predicament he was finding himself in. He hadn't really thought about it before, but the fact that his cousin was in Ravenclaw was an extremely rare occurrence; the Black family had been in Slytherin for as long as anyone cared to remember, with only the odd relative slipping into Ravenclaw every few decades or so. The chances of two Blacks ending up in Ravenclaw in one generation was extremely remote.  
So, that left Sirius to surmise that really, he was looking at living for another seven years with people just like his family, except worse, because there would be about a million times more of them around to bully him. He didn't want to be in Slytherin; with his whole heart, he didn't want to be in Slytherin. But he couldn't see that there was much he could do about it.  
All in all, he was feeling pretty miserable by the time the Hogwarts express pulled into the Hogsmeade station.  
  
As Remus and the girl called Lily tried to make their way of the train, it soon became quite clear it was not going to be an easy task, because, quite frankly, the place was in pandemonium. The rain was coming down in stair rods and the wind was howling something rotten, making it impossible to see or hear anything that was going on. Remus squinted into the bleakness in front of them as they finally stepped off the carriage and onto the platform. Girls were screaming and trying to cover their heads, luggage was being handed off to various people, and students kept tripping over owl cages and bags resting on the floor whilst the owners were running round trying to find their friends.  
Lily looked at Remus; she was rather pale. "Er...what do we do?" she asked timidly. Remus shook his head. Suddenly a booming voice could be heard floating over the heads of the hyper students on the platform.  
"First Years - this way!" The man, wherever he was, had a thick country accent and a commanding presence, but even so, it was still hard to heard clearly the words he was actually saying over the din.  
"Did he say first years?" yelled Remus. Lily nodded.  
"He said first years 'this way' - but I have no idea which way is 'this way'!" Luckily though, the owner of the voice came into view pretty quickly; in fact, it was a wonder he had been out of sight for as long as he had been. He was at least eight feet tall with a swathe of bushy, tangled hair and boots that looked as if they could kill a man. Remus and Lily couldn't help shrinking from his awesome presence. The man though, was obviously used to this kind of reaction, and called out in his booming voice, "nothing to worry about, there, just follow me this way and we'll have you indoors in no time."  
"What about our luggage?" cried a girl in an Irish accent with beautiful black wavy hair. "Don't worry - it'll be sent up for you. C'mon - this way!"  
There was a gradual divide as the first years followed the giant man one way, and the rest of the student body went the other. Remus looked as best he could at his future peer group and tried to suss them up in the pouring rain; he didn't have much luck. They reached the edge of what looked to be a substantial lake. "Right!" called the man over the wind, "my name's Hagrid - I'm the ground's keeper here at Hogwarts. We'll be taking the journey across the lake for your sorting, but the weather's a little choppy this year so you're to hold on tight - understand?" The first years nodded as one; none of them much fancied a swim just yet. "Great!" Hagrid cried, "okay - sort yourselves out - four to a boat!"  
Remus and Lily made there way towards one of the little wooden boats lined against the dock of the lake. They were joined by another couple of girls Remus hadn't seen before and they all sat gingerly down. Next to them was a boat with rather rowdy occupants, one in particular who was rocking the boat violently from side to side in the water in a giddy way and making the other occupants, one of which was the black-haired Irish girl, look extremely ill. "Will you pack that in!" snapped another blond girl who had joined them.  
"Right!" cried Hagrid once again, now in a boat all by himself (which looked crowded at that), "off we go!" The fleet of little boats lurched away from the lake's edge of their own accord and sailed off into the stormy darkness. Some of the youngsters couldn't help but cry out - some with glee, others, like Remus, in terror. Lily grabbed his hand; Remus wasn't sure who it was intended to comfort but he reasoned by the end of the journey it did a pretty good job of calming both of them down.  
The gaggle of slightly green first years jumped out of the boats as soon as they touched the other side of the lake. There seemed to be some sort of building above them, but the storm lashing as it was Remus couldn't make it out. Hagrid got out of his own boat and ushered everyone into a sort of sheltered cove. "Have we got everyone?" he asked. There was a general consensus that they had, so he turned around and opened a great oak door behind him. The students followed as he went, up and down flights of stone stairs, until they arrived at another wooden door deep within what seemed to be the castle that was Hogwarts.  
"This is where I leave you," Hagrid told the increasingly scared looking First Years. "Professor Hitchcock will be along shortly to take you in for the Sorting." And then he left them, walking back the way they'd come, humming a jaunty tune.  
The students looked at one another; the vast majority were petrified. Even the boy who had been rocking the boat was unusually quiet. Remus gulped; just what exactly did this Sorting entail?  
  
Sirius followed behind a tall Asian boy as they walked into the Great Hall for their Sorting. There had been a great deal of speculation as to the nature of the Sorting by the new First Years as they waited for the deputy Headmaster to show up; Sirius knew you only had to put on a hat, as Andromeda had told him, but he wasn't any less nervous than the other students around him.  
The line walked silently into the Hall, and Sirius felt even sicker when he realised the whole of the rest of the school was already there watching them. He decided not to look into the crown in case he saw an unfriendly face, of which there were a number.  
They came to a halt along what appeared to be the teacher's table, and stood to face the four house tables vertically in front of them. Professor Hitchcock uncurled a yellowy sheet of parchment as a stool with a battered old hat on was placed in front of the trembling students by a witch with square glasses and a rather austere demeanour.  
The entire school sat in silence and looked at the hat. Apparently it was going to sing, one of Andromeda's friend's had told him, but he couldn't seem to concentrate on anything but his hands as the battered old thing indeed opened a rip in its brim and began to serenade them all. His fellow students listened on in awe as the hat told them all about the four different houses they would soon be joining, but Sirius already knew what they were. As the song came to a close and people applauded with gusto, there was only one thought filling his head; there might be just a small chance he could land himself in Ravenclaw, if he concentrated hard enough.  
  
"When I call your name," said Professor Hitchcock a clear and audible voice, please sit on the stool and place the hat on your head." Sirius, squeezed his eyes shut; he was pretty certain of what was coming next.  
"Black, Sirius!"  
And there it was.  
As if walking through treacle, the young boy made his way slowly over to the stool and put the hat on; it slipped all the way over his wincing eyes.  
  
"Ah!" cried a voice in his ear, "we have another Black I see!"  
"Er...yes," said Sirius quietly. No one said the hat was going to talk to him!  
It seemed to be considering something. "Hmm...well this is very unusual," it told him, "very...hmm...well - certainly a great deal of confidence...a rather mischievous nature - oh, very clever, now that's not so surprising...but still...I wonder." Sirius gripped the sides of the stool for what felt like forever - the hat seemed to be making up it's mind. "Well - I think there's nothing for it," it declared, "it's going to have to be-" Sirius held his breath - "GRYFFINDOR!"  
Sirius fell off the stool.  
The hall burst into a mixture of applause and laughter. Sirius stood shakily to his feet and gave the hat back to the Deputy Headmaster, a look of disbelief on his face.  
The older man smiled. "Took your time, Black," he said with a note of good humour to his voice, then called the next student's name.  
  
This food, James reasoned, was the only food he'd ever come across that was actually better than his mother's. Not that he was going to admit it to anyone, but still - he was damn well impressed. The feast laid out before him and his new fellow housemates did not seem to be depleting, even though they had all been eating for a good hour or so. James felt a smile creep up onto his sleep face as he looked round at the table he was on; he was now officially a Gryffindor.  
The First Years were all grouped at one end of the table from the Sorting ceremony, and James regarded them with interest. Oddly enough, both his companions from the train carriage (Peter and Morwenna) had also ended up in the same house as him and were sitting opposite him now, chatting about Transfiguration. Peter had made to go sit along side what James assumed to be his sister at one point, but she had actually shoed the boy away. Both James and Morwenna, having seen this without Peter realising, made a conscious effort to make him feel welcome when he returned. Then there was the boy who had fallen off the stool during the Sorting. So far he hadn't spoken much, except for when an older girl had popped over from the Ravenclaw table to congratulate him; the relief at something had been evident on his face. Since then he'd just been eating with a half contented, half disbelieving grin on his face, occasionally looking up to pay attention to people's conversations, but mostly just lost in thought. There were a pair of blond twins who didn't appear to engage with anyone and seemed frighteningly intuitively linked, to the extent that James was beginning to wonder if the two girls were actually telepathic and had given up on regular conversation years ago. Just as the thought crossed his mind, the pair looked sharply up at him, then at each other. "Pass the carrots James," the one on the left chirped, not taking her eyes of him. James, a little freaked out, did as he was told, then refused to look at them again for the rest of the evening. And finally, there were the pair from the boat next to them on the lake. These James found the most interesting. The boy was called Remus Lupin and, once coaxed out of his shell, was thoroughly likable and had almost as an unhealthy interest in Quidditch as James himself did. It didn't take James long to notice that he was exceptionally cagey about touching people, but he had a bright open smile that James liked a lot, and he reasoned that when he got to know himself better he'd relax and stop worrying so much.  
The girl, though, was what was really engaging James' interest by the time desert appeared by magic on the glimmering gold plates. Her name was Lily Evens, and she had radiant crimson hair that glowed under the candle light and a laugh that almost seemed to mesmerize James. As the evening drew to a close and the First Years were escorted to their new rooms by the prefects, James could barely take his eyes off the girl. When the Gryffindor boys and girls went their separate ways up the tower to bed, James took one last look at Lily Evens, and as he drifted off to sleep not long after, decided that this was going to be a very interesting year after all. 


End file.
